The Angels Are Watching

Frans Boekkooi is an exciting sculptor who has found his heart space in the Karoo.

Text & Photographs by JULIENNE DU TOIT & CHRIS MARAIS

Summer in the Valley

When you visit Nieu Bethesda this summer, you will have cloudy daytime skies, warm and starry nights, Karoo Ale under the trees, Karoo lamb from a potjie while somewhere in the distance there could be the strains of a folk song being bashed out on a six-string Spanish guitar.You will walk the dusty streets and wonder about the price of homes here. People will smile at you, a drowsy German Shepherd will greet you and the fossil people at the Gats River will show you old bones. And, of course, there’s always the Owl House and the memories of Miss Helen.

You will not know – unless you ask – that the villagers have just survived what many say was the coldest winter in nearly a century. Just making it through another blizzard in Nieu Bethesda, just getting that evening fire going and hunkering down with a glass of wine and a bowl of stew, was a daily act of survival this winter past.

And when you cross the Gats River, possibly flowing for a change, stop at the studio where the face of playwright Athol Fugard looks down from the doorway.

Apart from the amazing likeness of Athol – creative patron of Nieu Bethesda – the next work of art to catch your eye will be Visman Steier (Fisherman Stagger). It’s based on an Etienne van Heerden character and is far more elegant in its poise, its fixin’-to-drop mode, than the title would suggest.

Dark Angel

There’s a half-completed figure of a boy sitting on a high stool. But above him, in the hover position, is a dark angel. He is the result of a series of inspirations that came to Frans Boekkooi, one of the most singular and insightful artists to have come to live in the Karoo in the past decade.

He’s called the figure Karoo Angel. Your mind’s eye places it high up in the Camdeboo, looking out over the Valley of Desolation, bearing silent witness to the vast plains of South Africa’s heartland.

The Old Blacksmith

Frans Boekkooi, his wife Heidi and their children (Leighton, Nina Rose and Walter) live in what used to be the old blacksmith’s house just down the road from the Two Goats Deli. They still have a photograph of a rather grim-looking Frederick Lehman, the blacksmith who once occupied these buildings.

They used to live in Port Elizabeth, and would sometimes come up here into the Sneeuberge to visit friends. About five years ago, Frans came to Nieu Bethesda to finish some important commissions.

“I spent three months here, in the quiet. My head space changed. There’s something about the Karoo. The feeling, the history, the people who make you feel so welcome. The light, the stars at night, the silence.

“It’s like you’ve come home. It’s a place that feels familiar, even though you may not have been here before. And it seems to bring out a creativity in so many people.”

Nieu Bethesda - Like Coming Home

When Heidi arrived to pick him up, she stayed on and the Karoo bug bit her as well. Not long after, they bought the old smithy.

She adds:

“We’d come for the weekend, and then it would be hard to leave. So we’d phone the kids’ school and tell them we’d be back on Tuesday. But somehow we just couldn’t leave. And then it would be Wednesday and we’d reckon well, the week’s nearly over. Pointless leaving now.

“It was around then that we decided we should move here permanently. Otherwise we’d be keeping the children out of school.”

The Movements of Children

Frans Boekkooi is fascinated with the movements of children. Many of his sculptures reflect their unselfconscious abandonment to the present.

“I’m inspired by their innocence.”

Some of his most famous pieces are of girls skipping and swinging. He gives them an incredible poise – improbably balanced on one little point, like a toe, or a rope, or a heel.

He’ll sculpt famous people as well, execute commissions and then sometimes others, like Visman Steier and Karoo Angel, demand to take form. He uses a concoction of different media: wax, metals and resins. Not so much the clay, because it’s difficult to keep damp in the dry Karoo climate.

And although they generally end up being slim, finely balanced pieces, their delicacy is often created by the use of power tools, which their dog (a bitch) called Jack hates. The minute Frans hoists a welding torch, Jack starts whining and attacking a nearby bush.

One’s eyes dart back into the gloomy recesses of his studio, at the winged figure. Frans says that one day the Karoo Angel might do more than watch. There might be a touch of Archangel Michael and his avenging sword to this brooding presence in time.

And if ever the Karoo needed a guardian angel, it’s right now...

• You can see more of Frans Boekkooi’s work at www.fransboekkooi.co.za